As an author who writes erotica, I can be something of an effete snob about erotic fiction. I often (but not always) need it to be narratively good, have believable characters, situations, conflict, setting, and narrative.
Having said that, I'm also not full-of-myself about it. I recognize that one of erotica's prime goals is to arouse people. I consider myself validated when someone tells me something I wrote made them wet or hard.
These same sensibilities translate into my love for pornography. And I do love it. Although again, I'm kind of exacting about it. Sex-negative stuff, content which degrades, trivializes, or asserts gender-essentialism generally doesn't do it for me.
There are particular things which appeal to me, but I'm often at a loss as to exactly what about them speaks to me.
Today I'm a bit closer to understanding some of that.
This post has three such images. They're all drawn images, and none is exactly, directly explicit, but they are still NSFW.
I stumbled across each of them in an early morning tumblr-porn-crawl because I was in a bit of a mood.
In the first, a dominant woman cuddles her submissive in their bed. The woman's in bra, panties, and stockings, and she's got the man cradled to her chest. You can't even see what he's wearing. The room they're in is warm, inviting, and suggests a bright sunny morning. They look like they're caught up in adoring one another, even as she's definitely in charge.
In the second, a fully dressed woman has a submissive man, naked except for some sort of harness, trapped under her legs while she sits and reads a book on a dreary, rainy day. She's got one hand lovingly caressing the man's hair. The comfort, warmth, and intimacy they feel is palpable.
In the third, the most abstract and cartoonish of the lot, a woman in a gray dress is laying back, on a plain red background square, and has her submissive man, who is naked, on his stomach between her legs, as she pulls his head by his hair, to lick her between her legs. From the slight detail you can see of the dress the woman's got a curvy, natural figure. She's not particularly thin, nor particularly heavyset, but she's got curves. Her thighs are proportionate, and very real. Her face has a pleased expression of bliss. The man's arms are underneath her, you cannot see them, but you can tell that he is willingly under her control. It's an animated image, and as she tugs his head to press him into her, she nods her own head in acknowledgement of the situation.
The thing I see in all these images, the thing that fairly jumps out at me is that in each of these pictures, you can see how everyone in the picture feels, and you believe it.
The power exchange and consent are so plain to me, and so compelling. Through my love of these images, I know myself just a little bit better.
I'm grateful for them, and for that.